Crowd psychology
Crowd psychology
Crowd psychology is the broad study of how individual behavior is impacted when large crowds group together, often with a negative social impact or later included emergency-type of environments producing more positive social impacts. ...
Scipio Sighele and Gabriel Tarde, Gustave LeBona, and Freud examined the theory of Crowd psychology and added to it. Some, like Columbia University's Tory Higgins, a professor of psychology, believes that riots such as the those of June 2020 in US cities typically occur when people feel "ineffective". "In situations like this, there is a long period prior to the riot of feeling that you're not in control of your own life.
The feeling of not being in control may be due to your desire to have more control than you may have a right to posses. If you desire to control others more than you desire to control yourself you may feel frustration or even have a feeling of being "ineffective" when others resist.
If you believe that your present state or your future is dependent more on others and their actions than your own you are more likely want to control or even blame others for your present condition or fate.
This may cause a desire to control others in society and create structures in society that allow for you to exert that control upon others.
- The sin of Cain is a seed sowed in the mind of men..
Social Structures
What is the Social Structure?
If the word “structure” refers to a set of relations between elements that has some measure of coherence and stability then “social structure” includes the relationships between elements of society that give some measure of cohesion and stability.
Social structure is the distinctive arrangement of the elements or institutions in a society whereby mankind may interact. Social structure can be changed by forces within society. An individual is not the structure of society but a resource and agent of society. While a social structure is an organized arrangements of society a social institution is a substructure that is patterned for the fulfillment of social needs. They may be public or private.
Social structure may include institutions such as family, churches, courts, government, economic and educational institutions. They may also include customs, practices, and perception of groups or classes.
Society may be required over the course of time to withstand the “heavy load” of reality in the form of disasters from nature and other societies as well as internal threats of infectious change, usurpation, or degeneration and decay. The structure of society may determine if that society and nation survives or is destroyed, whether it remain free or bond.
Structuration is "the state or process of organization in a structured form." The theory of structuration is a social theory of the creation and reproduction of social systems that is based in the analysis of both structure and agents, without giving primacy to either. Further, in structuration theory, neither micro- nor macro-focused analysis alone is sufficient.
Anthony Giddens'[1] theory of structuration explores the question of whether individuals or social forces shape society. Structuration theory asserts that social action cannot be fully explained solely by the structure or agency, or by micro- nor macro-focused analysis alone.
Giddens seems to sees the individual's autonomy as influenced by social structure but those structures are only maintained and adapted through the exercise of agency through the interactions of individuals. The individual must act within the context of rules established within social structures if the social structure is to be reinforced within the thinking of the individual.
In New Rules, Giddens wrote “the universe is being constituted—or produced by—the active doings of subjects.” “Individuals produce society, but they do so as historically located actors, and not under conditions of their own choosing.”
Where does culture come in to social structure?
Culture is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in societies, including the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups. Man acquire culture through the learning processes of socialization within both eniironment, time and society, which creates divers cultures across societies.
According to James S. House,[2] culture is what members of a social system collectively believe while social structure is the result of what members of a social system collectively do. Anthony GiddensCite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag as it went from a capitalist practicing Republic to a social Democracy with its free bread and circuses. Long before its fall its fate was sealed by its apathy, immorality, and covetous practices.
But what are the early signs of that degeneration of both individuals and society? Riots are not caused by a few provocateurs who may mingle in the crowds but caused by the spirit of selfishness that has already made a home in the hearts of the inhabitance of the city.
Some psychologists are confounded by riots taking place in the world but are also quick to judge perceived injustice, political motives, or racism as the cause. Many rioters are not desperately poor. Many of those "rioting" are just stealing stuff like clothes, shoes and electronic devises that they do not even need.
Riots have broken out after and even during hockey, football, rugby, and soccer games. In Constantinople the Nika riots over the course of a week in 532 CE when some of the most violent riots in the city's history, burned half of Constantinople with tens of thousands of people killed.
Was it a race war? In a manner of speaking you could say that. At the Hippodrome on January 13, 532, at the end of the 22nd chariot race crowed began to chant NIKA! NIKA!
The term can be translated WIN! WIN! but it really means victory by conquering. In Greek it is the root word of Nicolaitan whose deeds God hates.
Those chanting were the two teams, Blues and Greens. There were other teams like red and white but they were less significant. These sport teams also had a political element to them. They would shout political chants between races and events.
Justinian and an officials, John the Cappadocian had been reducing the civil service and combating corruption. The shadow government of the power elite resisted this attempt at draining the swamp of a vast bureaucracy. many of those who lost or feared loosing their lucrative positions joined the ranks of the Greens.
Justinian reduced the political influence and lobbying power of both Blue and Green teams. Both cited these reforms as imperial oppression. Romans believed themselves "chosen by God" and Justinian reform of their codes in thirteen months was praised by some but gave the appearance of a cause to be angry by others. They had slowed to a crawl because the aristocracy objected and were hindering him at every opportunity. A reduction of rules and a simplification of the codes made it impossible for the aristocracy, power elite, to use the complex codes and obscure laws avoid unfavorable verdicts or prosecutions of themselves.
There were accusations concerning a murder by a Blue and a Green whose sentence had been commuted from death to imprisonment rather than a pardon. But that seemed to just be a means to ignite the growing tension.
Many of the senators saw this as an opportunity to overthrow Justinian. They and the aristocratic shadow government had opposed his reforms and popularity. They encouraged the Blue and Greens who attacked the palace and elected a new emperor, Hypatius. On his coronation day Narses carrying a bag of gold given to him by Justinian came into the Hippodrome and bribed the leaders of the Blue team to withdraw their support from Hypatius and the Greens. Upon leaving thirty thousand rioters were killed as rebels by the army of Belisarius and Mundus who stormed into the Hippodrome.
- "Men nowadays no longer secretly, but openly outrage the wives of others, and allow others access to their own wives. A match is thought countrified, uncivilized, in bad style, and to be protested against by all matrons, if the husband should forbid his wife to appear in public in a litter, and to be carried about exposed to the gaze of all observers. If a man has not made himself notorious by a liaison with some mistress, if he does not pay an annuity to some one else's wife, married women speak of him as a poor-spirited creature, a man given to low vice, a lover of servant girls. Soon adultery becomes the most respectable form of marriage, and widowhood and celibacy are commonly practised. No one takes a wife unless he takes her away from some one else. Now men vie with one another in wasting what they have stolen, and in collecting together what they have wasted with the keenest avarice; they become utterly reckless, scorn poverty in others, fear personal injury more than anything else, break the peace by their riots, and by violence and terror domineer over those who are weaker than themselves. No wonder that they plunder provinces and offer the seat of judgment for sale, knocking it down after an auction to the highest bidder, since it is the law of nations that you may sell what you have bought."
Seneca ON BENEFITS
Even the Greek word korban is related to the term korbanas[3], signifying the “temple treasury.” The Jewish historian Josephus makes it clear that funds from the temple treasury were called “Corban,” hence could not be used for secular purposes, e.g., city improvements, as in the building of an aqueduct for water supply.[4]
The same term is translated treasury in Matthew 27:6, "And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood."
Pontius Pilate had put down riots because the Corban. The people's social security money that was kept in the temple treasury was used to build an aqueduct. Despite what people like to think there is no separation of funds in these government treasuries so while Pilate's actions were brutal his position was legally correct.
- ↑ Anthony Giddens, (Baron Giddens), a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. Director of London School of Economics, House of Lords.
- ↑ James S. House, Angus Campbell Distinguished, University Professor Emeritus of Survey Research, Public Policy, and Sociology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
- ↑ Korbanas: among the Jews the holy treasury. Pilate spent the holy treasury on an aqueduct and stirred up a riot. It brought in water from a distance of seventy-two kilometers. Bringing in his army, he killed many. From the Suda or Souda a tenth century Byzantine dictionary, which uses ancient sources that have since been lost.
- ↑ "At another time he used the sacred treasure of the temple, called corban (qorban), to pay for bringing water into Jerusalem by an aqueduct. A crowd came together and clamored against him; but he had caused soldiers dressed as civilians to mingle with the multitude, and at a given signal they fell upon the rioters and beat them so severely with staves that the riot was quelled." The Aqueduct- Josephus, War 2.175-177, Antiq 18.60-62.